Angela Figuera
Angela Figuera Aymerich was a Spanish writer born on October 30, 1902, in Bilbao, Spain. The eldest of nine children, her early life was shaped by familial responsibilities, particularly nurturing her siblings, which influenced her later literary themes of motherhood and care. Despite her passion for literature, her father's disapproval led her to initially pursue a teaching career, although she eventually completed her literature studies at the University of Valladolid. Throughout her life, Figuera faced personal challenges, including the loss of a child and the impact of the Spanish Civil War on her family, which deeply informed her writing.
Figuera published her first poetry book, "Mujer de barro," at the age of 46, marking the beginning of a prolific period in her career. Her works often transitioned from themes of motherhood to critiques of women's oppression and the socio-political injustices of Franco's regime. Over her lifetime, she produced a significant body of work, advocating for women's rights and social justice through her poetry. Figuera passed away in 1984, leaving behind a legacy of poignant literature that continues to resonate with readers today.
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Subject Terms
Angela Figuera
Poet
- Born: October 30, 1902
- Birthplace: Bilbao, Spain
- Died: April 2, 1984
Biography
Angela Figuera Aymerich was born on October 30, 1902, in Bilbao, Spain, to an industrial engineer and a teacher. The eldest of nine children, she had a peaceful childhood, despite having to care for her eight siblings when her mother’s fragile health warranted it. This task contributed to Angela’s later writing, which contained themes of motherhood and nurturing. However, little of her early writing surviveds. From the beginning, she wrote stories and poetry, but destroyed it almost immediately. Only one surviving collection of childhood writings exists, safe in the hands of her husband, Julio Figuera.
As an adolescent, Figuera aimed to commit her life to literature, and intended on studying it in college, after graduating from high school in 1924. However, her father disapproved of the choice, and pushed her toward a more stable teaching career. Relentless, Angela entered the University of Valladolid, and two years later passed the literature exams, leading her in her original direction.
In 1927, her father died, and her uncle sent her to Madrid to finish her teaching degree. Perhaps this was a blessing, for once Figuera finished at the university, she needed the financial stability teaching would provide, and so began work in Madrid as a teacher and private tutor. By 1933, she had passed the secondary-school teaching examination that enabled her to get hired to teach in Huelva.
At the same time she began teaching, she married her cousin, Julio Figuera, and soon thereafter became pregnant, but lost the child during labor. In 1936, she became pregnant for the second time. A coalition to overthrow the government had launched a civil war and called her husband away to serve in the leftist Republican army. Figuera spent the last seven months of her pregnancy alone, giving birth to her son in December. She was fired when the school learned of her and her husband’s Republican leanings. Undaunted, Figuera instead devoted herself to her son, Juan Ramón, her husband, and her writing.
Publishing her first poetry book, Mujer de barro (clay woman), at the age of forty-six, Figuera also found work at the National Library in Madrid and as a freelance translator until 1949, when she published her second book. Through the 1950’s, Angela Figuera would at last be able to devote herself to her earliest proclivities, producing the bulk of her oeuvre—six more works that moved from motherhood themes to those that challenged the disempowerment of women, criticized the repression and censorship of a corrupt regime, and voiced her intense reactions to the injustice and decadence of Franco’s Spain.
After completing two books for her granddaughter and returning to Madrid with Julio in 1971, Figuera struggled with heart and lung problems and died in 1984, an eighty-one year old writer.